Audio on demand

The Heart of Australian Racing: The Melbourne Cup

This symposium, held in conjunction with the Victoria Racing Club to mark the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cup, celebrates the place of this iconic racing event in Australian life and culture, and its enduring fascination for Australians. Listen to racing personalities, historians and public thinkers discuss and debate the national allure of the Melbourne Cup.

MC for the day Bryan Martin provides a brief background to the Melbourne Cup and Andrew Sayers, the new Director of the National Museum, outlines why the Museum recently declined to lend Phar Lap’s heart to Melbourne for the horse’s re-assembly.

Rod Fitzroy, Chairman of the Victoria Racing Club, outlines events taking place during 2010 to mark the 150th Melbourne Cup race, including the launch of a commemorative coin set struck by the Royal Australian Mint and three legacy projects.

Former Australian political leader and statesman, Andrew Peacock talks about ‘chasing a dream’ of winning a Melbourne Cup and from his experience describes how, unlike the Melbourne Cup, other great horses race around the world don’t stop any nation.

To introduce this session Louise Douglas talks about not only Phar Lap’s heart but also many other objects associated with the Melbourne Cup in the National Museum of Australia’s National Historical Collection.

Rod Fitzroy discusses how it’s a little bit of good luck and a lot of good management that has delivered for a century and a half an annual event that so commands the attention of the whole nation as does the Melbourne Cup.

Having researched written three volumes covering the social and political history of Australian racing, Andrew Lemon has been working as a consultant historian with the Victoria Racing Club and talks about why the Melbourne Cup.

Hear what the Melbourne Cup means to the owner of a cup winner, the first female trainer to win both the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, the grandson of the inaugural Melbourne Cup winning trainer, and a former jockey who has won the Melbourne Cup twice.

Hear a racing administrator, the author of The Horse in Australia, a bookie and a sports publisher discuss the public fascination with the Cup as not only a day of fashion, socialising, networking and fun but also a time to chance their luck with a bet.